Japan Journal
Kua Aina’s hamburger overcomes health worries and a weak economy to score a
TOKYO - Given Japan's long-term economic problems and lingering concerns about a health scare involving beef, now might not seem like an auspicious time to build a hamburger chain in the Japanese market. However, that's exactly what Hawaii's Kua Aina and its Japanese partner have done, with successful results. Since the Haleiwa-based burger and sandwich company opened its doors in Tokyo in 1997, Japan has become home to a chain of 11 Kua Aina restaurants, including one that opened in Osaka last month and another that debuts this month at Odaiba, a leisure development on Tokyo Bay. Kua Aina's leap across the Pacific came when Four Seeds Corp., which owns Japan's largest pizza-delivery service, acquired the local franchise rights. The chain has continued to expand in spite of potential setbacks such as the discovery of mad cow disease in Japan in 2001. That outbreak, and a subsequent scandal in which beef products were deliberately mislabeled, triggered a plunge in Japanese beef consumption that hurt major chains such as McDonald's. By comparison, Kua Aina escaped the crisis largely unscathed, says Terry Thompson, who started Kua Aina in 1975. One reason is that it aggressively advertised that it uses only imported Nebraska beef. The fact that the chain serves alternatives to hamburgers, such as Mahi Mahi sandwiches and BLT's, also helped. Mad cow "was pretty much a bump in the road," Thompson says by phone from Haleiwa. "We took off again after that." Kua Aina's popularity comes amid changes affecting the Japanese restaurant industry as a whole. While the weak economy has made people here more price-sensitive, Japan still enjoys one of the highest standards of living, and the average diner is discriminating when it comes to quality.
As a result, budget-conscious consumers are looking for restaurants that offer good food and an enjoyable atmosphere at a reasonable price. That has opened the way for establishments serving something in between fast food and elegant eats, including casual eateries and theme-based restaurants from the United States. Kua Aina, which serves "gourmet" hamburgers in restaurants featuring Hawaiian-shirt-clad servers, surfing memorabilia and piped-in Hawaiian radio, fits this mold. "I come here two or three times a week," says Toko Umemoto, who was lunching at the bustling Kua Aina in Shibuya one weekday with two co-workers. "It's delicious and I don't get tired of it. It also reminds me of the U.S., where I spent some time. The food, the décor - it's all sort of nostalgic." Not far from the Shibuya outlet is Kua Aina's original Tokyo shop, a cramped, three-story building in the upscale Aoyama area. According to Four Seeds, this location alone serves about 450 people a day on average, and over 150,000 annually. Across town, business executives and casually dressed shoppers queue up at the Kua Aina in the Maru Building, a ritzy retail, dining and office complex that opened in front of Tokyo Station in September 2002. Other outlets include one at Ikspiari, part of the Tokyo Disney Resort, and another at the Universal Studios theme park in Osaka. Even before it arrived in Japan, Kua Aina's name had begun to spread. "The Japanese started coming to Haleiwa in the 1990s when word got out that this was the place you needed to come to if you wanted a Western hamburger," recalls Thompson. "It just started to snowball after that." |
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